It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

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Someone does something that puts them, or the people around them in a bad or unpleasant situation. Hindsight reveals that although they had good intentions, their actions were not in their best interests.

If questioned about why they did it, they'll often respond with the reason for everything that has ever been done by anyone at any time and any place: "It seemed like a good idea at the time!".

Examples:

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Advertising

In one commercial for Jameson's Irish Whiskey, John Jameson leaps overboard when one of his barrels of whiskey is lost in a storm to retrieve it, and while he's down there narrator says "In hindsight, that probably wasn't a good idea" when he sees a giant octopus start reaching towards him. Viewable here.

In another, as a fire ravages Dublin, he grabs an ax when the fire reaches his distillery. The narration says "John Jameson devised a brilliant plan. But there was simply no time, so, he devised another, less-brilliant plan." Said not-so-brilliant-plan is chopping open a sluice gate of a giant, stone dam to flood the city. Full version here.

Anime & Manga

The scientists of the Open Sado Project in 7 Seeds. One of them discovered a new type of Lizard Ant, who seem partial to the energy bars that the scientists eat themselves. One of their later hologram-recordings mentions that the ants escaped their original glass nest and are roaming around freely, with some of the scientists hallucinating. It's not exactly clear how many years passed between this event and when our protagonists finally encounter it, but by the time they do, the facility is a mess of huge holes, filled with these and other huge ants and even larger earthworms and they all suffer from hallucinations which makes them disorented. And this is all cause the scientists were doing their job, trying to continue regular life of scientists in a facility meant to replicate the world for the protagonists whenever they awaken after The End of the World as We Know It.

The corrupt World Government in One Piece often makes decisions that are this trope. The biggest one to date is the Summit War. They managed to capture the late pirate king Gol D. Roger's son Portgas D. Ace and wanted to not only end Roger's bloodline but also use Ace as bait to draw in Whitebeard, the strongest pirate in the world at the time, so they could defeat Whitebeard and his crew. Unfortunately several outside factors made things go south very fast. While the World Government had no control over the outside factors that turned what should have been a great victory into a Pyrrhic Victory it should have been obvious to the World Government that things wouldn't go down so simply, to say nothing of the fact that they really didn't consider the ramifications in the long term. To wit:

Ace's brother Luffy tried to rescue him at the super prison Impel Down and when that didn't work, Luffy made a huge jail break that ended up releasing some of the most dangerous prisoners in the world. The Government's reaction to that was to cover it up so they wouldn't lose the people's faith despite the fact that if such prisoners start something (which they will) the escape will be exposed anyway and the government will lose face for both the escape and lying to the people.

Taking down Whitebeard created a power vacuum and disrupted the delicate balance of power among the strongest and most influential groups in the world. This should have been obvious with some forethought and the worst part is that after the war, so much of the government's forces were stretched thin that the government could barely keep a lid on the ensuing chaos.

What if anything did the World Government get out of all of this? They admitted they only wanted Ace dead because of his parentage, not because he was particularly threatening in and of himself. Whitebeard was on life support and would have died anyway in a few more years. Confucius say, "Do not use a cannon to kill a mosquito" - the WG basically set off an extinction level event to kill two particularly annoying bears.

Comics

This explanation gets used a lot in Nodwick. Especially by Yeagar, who has the wisdom of a lemming.

Said word for word by Story!Loki in issue #16 of Loki: Agent of Asgard when their best (and only) friend began to question why they turned her soul into a piece of magical jewellery. Come to think of it if you apply this reasoning to most of young Loki's plans they begin to make a strange amount of sense... sometimes they even work.

In White Sand, Kenton spends a long time arguing to be allowed to take the Mastrell's Path exam, but when he enters the arena, his first thought is "remind me again, why did I think this was a good idea?".

Evelyn: By the way, why did you kiss me? Rick: I don't know. I was about to be hanged. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, Crow attempts to escape the Satellite of Love by digging a tunnel through space. When asked why he decided to bore a hole through the hull of the ship, he responds, "I calculated the odds of this working vs the odds that I was doing something incredibly stupid and... I went ahead anyway."

Without a Paddle. Del Knox has spent 30 years in a cabin after partnering with D.B. Cooper in his famous skyjacking.

Jerry Conlaine: But you could've left! Why'd you stay up here all these years?

Gibarian: It seemed like a good idea at the time, now I think I made a mistake.

In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, after the Kremlin explodes, Ethan is taken to hospital and is suspected to be responsible for the explosion. The Russian cop Sidorov is sent to the hospital to investigate, but Ethan manages to free himself and climbs out of the window to jump down into a refuse container, but realises that it's way too high.

Sidorov: Not a good idea.

Ethan: Seemed like one three minutes ago.

Literature

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Everything Zaphod Beeblebrox ever does, except when caught up in a plan related to finding out who really rules the universe in later volumes. Of course, this seems to have been the main reason Zaphod pulled said plan on himself by altering his own memories; even he questions his own judgment on this one.

In the novel Knight Life by Peter David, Merlin says any question can be answered by one of three statements: "Everybody has to be somewhere," "God told me to do it," and "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

In Oryx and Crake, where pigs are spliced with human DNA in order to create ultra-large pigs who grow multiple human organs that are used for transplants. Some of them even have some human brain tissue, which makes them viciously intelligent. Of course, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Similarly to the Oryx and Crake example, in the Revelation Space universe an intelligent species of "hyperpigs" exists due to genetic manipulations conducted to provide transplant materials. While things are rocky for a long while, a hyperpig ends up being vital to saving all humans and hyperpigs from the Inhibitors.

In the Discworld series, Nanny Ogg's primary method of functioning is explicitly described as, "Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and to do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down."

A nonfiction book by Bill Fawcett cataloging such events in Real Life uses the trope as its title.

Harry Dresden cites this word for word when he admits that he may have kinda thrown himself out of a moving car. He had a plan. Sort of.

The Horrible Histories: 20th Century novel lists a whole bunch of useless 20th century inventions that seemed like good ideas, but weren't. They're even referred to with the acronym "SLAGIATT" - "Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time!"

In the opening quote for one of the chapters in The Grimnoir Chronicles, this is the defense offered by the people who accidentally caused the Dust Bowl by magically altering the weather.

In Warrior Cats, StarClan thought it was a good idea to hide the secret about their parents from Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather. Itwasn't.

Live Action Television

Adam-12: Several episodes where officers — both Malloy and Reed, and then other officers as well — are shown making serious mistakes that seem to work out well initially but later on have not-so-good outcomes or might not have made good outcomes, and an authority figure pointing said mistakes out. One of the most notable examples:

Malloy making several judgment mistakes in "A Jumper-Code 2," in the concluding call of the episode (a possible jumper on a tall ledge); Malloy makes a high-risk move that, while it works out well, could have gotten either him and/or the jumper killed or badly hurt.

Sometimes illustrated through the character of Officer Ed Wells, the cocky officer who often acts before he thinks. His attitudes are spelled out perfectly in "A Dead Cop Can't Help Anyone," where the first call we see him work — Wells and his partner barging in on a domestic dispute and narrowly avoiding getting shot — turns out well enough, but a second call (a psychotic gunman randomly firing at passersby in a residential neighborhood) ends with him getting shot as he was running toward the house to try to subdue the gunman. Don't worry: Wells is OK, and he'll be back in the future.

Clark Kent: Glasses, secret identity... seemed like a good idea at the time.

On an episode of Night Court, Mac’s bigoted grandfather can’t accept that his grandson has married an Asian woman. So Harry orders his grandfather arrested and locks him up in the same cell with Mac’s wife, so the two of them can get to know each other better. Mac is aghast when he finds out, and a crestfallen Harry gives the trope name word-for-word as his defense. Mac responds, “Well, sir, I’m sure human sacrifice seemed like a good idea at the time!”

The Stock Phrase is also used in "The Way Of The Warrior Part I", when Sisko is rather surprised to find Dukat on the side of the Cardassian Civilian Government instead of Cardassian Military. Facing a revolution, Dukat had to consider what was best for... well, Dukat.

Sisko: In other words, you saw which way the wind was blowing and switched sides.

Ricky: Look Julian, I was baked out of my mind, it seemed like a good idea at the time alright?

One stand-up comedian says that this is the reason why men do so many stupid and idiotic things, because guys aren't thinking about the past or the future and are only concerned with having a good time right now. He uses Bill Clinton as an example, and claims Bill would have gotten off scot free if he had just told the truth.

"Mr. President, are we to understand that she just walked right into your office and started... well, you know."

Unnamed child: You already pre-paid us. For the whole month. (holds a wad of cash up to Carly and Freddie)

Carly: (to Freddie, who looks at her weirded out) ...It seemed like a good idea at the time.

On Parks and Recreation a young grade-school girl visits the office on a class assignment to learn about government, and finds Ron Swanson to talk with. He happily shares his disapproving views on the government and taxation, and gives her a going-away present of a Claymore mine, telling her "Protect what's yours." Her mother later visits, furious at her daughter being given ordnance, and Ron utters the trope phrase.

Air Crash Investigation: The root cause of some of the disasters caused by pilot error. "Kid in the Cockpit" concerned a famous Russian case where a senior airline pilot allowed his teenage son to take the controls of a brand new Airbus A310. The teen inadvertently disabled the plane's autopilot and the flight crew, unfamiliar with the state-of-the-art aircraft, failed to bring it back under control. Tragic hilarity ensued. An especially needless tragedy given that the investigators found that everything would have been fine if they had just let go of the control column.

In the 2nd episode of Malcolm in the Middle, when Malcolm's Mother (who had been interrogating Malcolm and the boys believing that they were responsible for the destruction of one of her dresses) finds out how the boys had been surviving her punishments, Malcolm and the boys get desperate and they attempt to flee once they get found out by creating a tunnel. When their mom (who had calmed down) goes to re-confront them, she finds their room completely destroyed, while Malcolm puts the icing on the cake:

The narrator of "Weird Al" Yankovic's "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" quotes this trope verbatim while speculating why the titular twine ball was built.

The inclusion of 3D glasses with The Raveonettes album Lust Lust Lust must have seemed like a fun gimmick at the time, but unfortunately it rendered the album ineligible for the UK Albums Chart. None of their albums since have charted in the UK at all.

Radio Show

True to its tendency of turning sayings into titles, This American Life has done an episode (#306) that's flat out titled "Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time."

Theatre

In The Addams Family, Gomez tells the giant squid in the cellar that this is why the United States has the Electoral College. (Used as a throwaway joke.)

Video Games

In Portal 2 you're given the opportunity to remove Big Bad GLaDOS' control over the facility and replace her with Wheatley, a cheery, kindhearted robot that's done nothing but help you. Seems like a great idea, right? Well, keep in mind that you should have noticed by this point that the "cheery, kindhearted robot that's done nothing but help you" is in fact an idiot. But the immediate effect is that anyone who gets put in charge of the facility is driven insane (good job turning your only friend into a homicidal maniac) and said friend is actually a literalIdiot Ball; "He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived." And you just put him in charge of the facility that was taking great effort to kill you before you put a vicious idiot in the driver's seat.

This statement could probably be the unofficial motto for Aperture Science in general. Which is exemplified by the Mantis DNA project, in which the second batch of test subjects gets used for a new test: fighting an army of Mantis Men.

A Real Life example for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Introducing paid mods into a passionate, decades-old community with no prior warning wasn't the most well-thought out plan. Insisting it was for the best intentions didn't help. The feature was removed amid intense backlash mere days later.

Another real life example. Back in 1988 Nintendo wanted to develop a CD peripheral for the SNES. They first partnered with Sony, but after discovering the deal gave Sony unprecedented control over the games on it, they bailed and partnered with Philips. This made Sony none too happy at the betrayal. The SNES never got a CD add-on, Philips got temporary rights to misuse NintendoIPs, and Sony got busy preparing for the formal announcement of the PlayStation. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! indeed.

In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures , the cubi race are mentioned to be the kings of this, due to their emotion reading talents making them very emotional. Fights with them are compared to fighting someone who's blind drunk.

In Namesake, Selva explains her plan to prevent people from being brainwashed by poppies, mainly turning them into inanimate objects (since your head can't be infected by poppies if you don't have a head) in these terms.

When we first meet Haley's dad, he's rotting in a prison. He later admits that he's trying to overthrow the local Evil Empire, and thought that being a Play-Along Prisoner would be a great way to find allies. He hit a snag when it became apparent that breaking out would not be so easy.

Ian: Okay, the important thing to remember is that it seemed like a really good idea at the time.

Web Original

In the Chakona Space 'verse, chakats are mentioned to be highly susceptible to this.

Scummy Screen:(Congested and obviously ill-looking) It seemed like a good deal at the time…

Western Animation

Milked for all its comedic worth in Family Guy. Adam West rolls around in nuclear waste in order to gain superpowers — and gets lymphoma. The doctor who he explains this to is taking this all in, and concludes that Adam West is an idiot — much as someone would do were this same feat attempted in Real Life. The irony is that earlier in the story, the Griffins had gained superpowers in a manner quite similar, and Adam West's rolling around in the waste was part of a desperate plot to put a stop to their evil dominion over the town. Of course, he still succeeds — the Griffins feel extremely guilty realizing that Adam West got lymphoma just because they were using their superpowers to be petty jerks.

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan episode "The Gypsy Caper". Suzie, Alan, Anne and Tom are exhausted, Tom spots a hive and suggests they partake of the honey as a natural energy source. Unfortunately, the bees aren't too thrilled about that and the group ends up getting a second wind by fleeing and diving into a lake.

Jade destroys Shendu's physical form after they beat him at the end of season 1. Unfortunately this allows other forms of evil beings to come forth, since the world NEEDS a Balance Between Good and Evil. The only reason it seems things float towards the good side of things is because said evil is sealed, NOT destroyed.

Uncle: I said face the dragon, not waste the dragon!

It happens when Jackie destroys the talismans. He had hoped that their power would be destroyed and would end people misusing their powers, but unfortunately their powers can't be destroyed; only their hosts (which were the talismans at the time) can. Their powers then sought out new hosts and he inadvertently started the talisman hunt all over again.

In Drawn Together episode "Breakfast Food Killer", that hiding the UCP codes up his butt seemed like a good idea at the time. Though he didn't really have any other place to hide them.

Squirrel Boy: Andy says something along the lines of this when he mentions that he's been slowly replacing his bedroom door with graham crackers as a trio of rat gangsters are breaking it down.

Real Life

During the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Chibi was a case of this. The warlord Cao Cao, fresh over his conquest of northern China, marched his forces south in order to subjugate the only truly major opposition to his reunification of China: Liu Biao and Sun Quan. Liu Biao died and his successor quickly surrendered, and Cao prepared for war with Sun despite his forces being exhausted from the long march, many of his best generals and officers staying behind to consolidate his new territory and the fact that the terrain in the area was unsuited for the cavalry tactics he used with such efficiency. His reasoning was sound: his men, while exhausted, were fresh off numerous victories and his forces far outnumbered Sun's. He hoped to intimidate Sun into surrender, or at least breakthrough and force said surrender. A combination of determined resistance, unseasonable weather (that made the famous fire attack even more effective) and plague forced his retreat.

The colonization of New England. Most of the British colonies in North America were set up either as trading posts or as cash cows for profitable crops. New England, on the other hand, was Britain's dumping ground for social misfits and religious dissidents - basically anyone they didn't know what to do with. Massachusetts in particular was a hotbed of political radicals and religious whackjobs for most of the 18th century. Less than a century after its initial colonization, New England became the center of a secessionist movement that would eventually become The American Revolution. Maybe putting all the crazy people in one place wasn't such a great idea...

Mary Renault on the burning of Persepolis by Alexander the Great:

"Like many happenings at a very successful party it seemed like a good idea at the time."

This was the reason given for the production of The Day the Clown Cried, a movie about a Holocaust-era clown, that will never be allowed to see the light of day until at least 2025 when the copy Lewis gave to the Library of Congress is finally allowed to be screened.

On Aeroflot Flight 593, the plane's captain took his two children into the cockpit to let them sit at the controls of the brand-new and impressive Airbus A310. The captain's teenaged son, who had no idea how the plane really worked, inadvertently disabled the autopilot. The flight crew, unfamiliar with the state-of-the-art autopilot, were unable to regain control of the aircraft. Flight 593 crashed, killing all 75 people on board.

Eating large quantities of food, e.g. as part of a contest, may seem like a fun thing to do...until the food coma and wooziness kick in less than an hour later.

The mega-popular image hosting site Imgur instituted paid advertisements in June 2015. The first company to attempt it was Warner Brothers Records. The Warner Bros. Records account had dropped to almost -60,000 reputation in less than a week. They made three whole posts before the account was reset due to this intense negative reception. This was mere days after the forced removal of NSFW comments (which in no way was related to the incoming advertisers, trust us), that sparked a mini-revolt by the community at large. Imgur reinstated NSFW comments as an option that was off by default.

Owning a pet could turn into this trope in said pet's final years. The pain of watching a beloved dog or cat getting old, getting sick, and dying could make you wonder why you decided to get them in the first place considering the inevitable heartbreak experienced in the end.

There are some who could argue this Trope explains every decision made in the entire length and breadth of HUMAN HISTORY.

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